Gallery closed. This project is a window installation that can be viewed from the street.

Donato Mancini has developed a practice in music criticism, visual arts and media criticism and prose and poetry forms. In this latter aspect of his work, Donato combines spoken language overheard in public spaces with aleatoric compositional methods. These texts are realized in visual form, using commercial signage systems such as laser lettering and colour xerox, and enter the realm of visual art practice in their attention to the effect of colour and typography. This new exhibition will be installed in Artspeak’s storefront during late July and August, when the regular exhibition space is closed to the public.

Carrall Street in the summer is a lively pedestrian thoroughfare for tourists to Gastown, visitors to the shops, restaurants, bars and services nearby, and Downtown Eastside neighbours. Coffee houses with seating on the street provide a place to stop and watch passersby and catch their commentary as they pass. Donato Mancini’s work uses as its starting point the conversations, public altercations, and commentary of pedestrians overheard by the artist on Carrall Street during May and June. These texts will be edited, composed and executed in vinyl laser cut lettering in a range of colours, and installed in the interior window surface of Artspeak’s facade. The work will present to the audience on the street a ‘sampled’ version of overheard observations and concerns in a form that is accessible 24 hours a day for the period of the installation.

Female Victoria filmmaker seeks female singer/songwriters ages approximately 17–25 to be featured in art film. No experience necessary.

From this ad placed in a Victoria entertainment weekly, Althea Thauberger auditioned many young women performing original compositions. A group of eight were then recorded individually in a professional recording studio setting and later filmed on 16mm, lip-synching, at a variety of ‘natural’ settings in and around Victoria. The locations in some way epitomize romanticized west-coast motifs, and the lush glade, the rugged clifftop and the bountiful garden assert themselves as characters in the piece. The series of performances are screened on digital video, in a looped sequence.

Songstress combines references to the screen test and music video and grafts them to the long history of conflating the feminine with nature. The overdetermined form of the folk ballad and the high production values of the work are at odds with one another and with the extremely personal and emotive expression of the young songwriters. The struggle evident in the performances is echoed in the ambiguity of the viewer; both caught between the authenticity of emotional turmoil and the more comfortable and familiar simulations and cliches of pop culture forms.

Artspeak is pleased to host the book launch and reading event of Donato Mancini’s first full length book of poetry “Ligatures”. This event is in collaboration with the Kootenay School of Writing and New Star.

“Ligatures is a splendid read, a wake-up call to both the eyes and the brain. Conceptually urbane, yet with all the mischief of a Situationist hornbook, it launches an energetic and dazzling varied sortie into the labyrinth of letters. Mancini exposes the alphabet as both a critical lure to the organizing intellect and as a strange attractor to the imaginary. Because of this double vector he has pulled off an exemplary text that brings the reader a tangible instance of James Joyce’s proposal in Finnegan’s Wake that ‘the proteiform graph is itself already a polyhedron of scripture.'” — Steve McCaffery

“For some, language is the plate upon which words are served. For others it is the meat, bread and vegetables. How exciting to look through a book like Ligatures, to see how meals are made. From language, no less. In a post-poetry world, Mancini’s a master chef.” — Michael Turner

In this audio project, Candie Tanaka has layered, manipulated and digitally edited ‘real world’ sounds from an urban environment into discrete soundtracks. These soundtracks are then inserted as unexplained artworks into the voice messaging systems of individuals and a range of cultural institutions. The CD contains both the out-going recorded message of the recipients and the soundtrack messages left behind. Bookwork graphics: Jen Eby.

The CD contains the soundtrack from the exhibition Songstress by Althea Thauberger; the bookwork features portraits of the singer/songwriters and their handwritten lyric sheets. Kathy Slade’s text, Songs for Girls, critically investigates the trope of the west-coast chanteuse and the conflation of femininity and ‘nature’.

Female Victoria filmmaker seeks female singer/songwriters ages approximately 17 – 25 to be featured in art film. No experience necessary.

From this ad placed in a Victoria entertainment weekly, Thauberger auditioned young women performing original compositions. A group of eight were recorded individually in a professional recording studio setting and later filmed on 16mm, lip-synching, at a variety of ‘natural’ settings in and around Victoria. The locations in some way epitomize romanticized west-coast motifs, and the lush glade, the rugged clifftop and the bountiful garden assert themselves as characters in the piece. The series of performances were screened at Artspeak on digital video in a looped sequence.

The CD contains the soundtrack from the exhibition Songstress by Althea Thauberger. The bookwork features portraits of the singer/songwriters and their handwritten lyric sheets. Kathy Slade’s text, “Songs for Girls,” critically investigates the trope of the west-coast chanteuse and the conflation of femininity and ‘nature’.